Saturday, April 17, China.
I went on a city tour this morning. The tour guide, Mary, reminded me a lot of my cousins in New Orleans (hard to say if it was Katie or Camille). The tour was good because it showed me several areas of the city that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. There were a few cheesy parts; lunch for instance was a very “fake” Chinese restaurant.
Speaking of food; so far it has been great. I really like a lot of the Chinese cuisine I have had so far, especially the bread. It is amazing at how abundant food is here, yet no one is fat, must be all of the walking. I am dying to try some of the food from the street vendors; they have the steamed white ball things that look great. If only there wasn’t traveler’s sickness to contend with.
The people here are very interesting. Most of them pretty much keep to themselves. They are conservative dressers, no one wears white, and most are bundled up. No one has struck me as a punk or threatening so far. A few have starred, but hey a 6’ 2” white guys kind of stands out. I have been asked if I want to buy a watch 20 or 30 times, but so far it has been easy to simply ignore them and walk away. The city feels pretty safe, more so than I can say in the American cities I have been to.
Not many people that I have interacted with have very good English. It has been interesting trying to communicate.
Overall I would say that I like Shanghai. Even though the city is very large the subway system is highly effective, there are cabs everywhere, and it is clean.
